1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to image processing apparatuses, methods and programs, and particularly to image processing apparatuses, methods and programs binarizing image data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally for image data a region including a character is binarized (see for example Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2001-222683). To speed up this binarization process, image processing apparatuses often have a dedicated hardware circuit mounted therein. To reduce the cost of the apparatus, the dedicated hardware circuit employs a relatively small capacity of memory and image data is divided into band data and binarized.
The image data is divided regardless of its specific content: it is divided as based on its amount of data. As such, a character may be divided into a plurality of band data. This can cause the character to be determined in one band data as a character and in the other band data as other than a character. Furthermore, the hardware circuit binarizes the image data in accordance with a predetermined algorithm, and for example if the hard ware circuit has some types of algorism, an image or the like including a character configured of lines existing densely may not be determined as a character. As a result, the character has a portion or its entirety unbinarized and thus lost, resulting in binarized data contributing to an image impaired in quality.